Friday, December 05, 2008

Constructing ELMER

Here's a god exercise if you wana teach yourself cartoon construction and get your own drawings more solid.

trace the frame grabs in photoshop using construction

1) draw your line of action through the figure2) Draw your major forms around the line of action

-torso-head-legs-hat3) draw center lines through the middle of the forms first vertically, then horizontally - following the perspective of the forms you use these to aim the details - like eyes, nose, mouth, collar, hat details etc...I screwe mine up by drawing my construction on the same layer as the frame grab.

You should draw them on a separate layer (or layers) so you can turn off the frame grab layer and look at the construction by itself

then you can try to finish the details yourself by eye, by placing them along and beside the construction lines.

That's all I got for today. This will teach you a lot. Do lots and ots of poses and you will start to understand how to move your characters in space

when you add details like clothes wrinkles and bulges, don't bulge them too much or you will break up the forms and line of action and silhouette

Could we instead print out the frame and construct it with a real pencil? Or maybe see this as a Preston Blair type exercise and try to get our seperate drawing as close to this one as possible? I really hate photoshop. I don't know how to use it at all.

I actually came up with a similar strategy, when I did a "Falling Hare" pose a few weeks ago; except I printed the frame off the computer and traced it by hand. It has the same result though. It helped me when I did the same pose from pure observation.

"It was that year of 1942. The grapefruits were coming in and the cole slaw wars were at their worst. Ya see, in my day, we called Cole Slaw by the name of Liberty cabbage, and the story of how that got its name is full of excitement and action, but I don't want to tell it, so there..."